Beyeler Foundation
Coordinates: 47°35′17″N 7°39′04″E / 47.5881°N 7.65106°E
| Fondation Beyeler | |
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| Established | 1982 |
| Location | Riehen, Switzerland |
| Type | Art museum |
| Visitor figures | c. 340'000 (2006) |
| Director | Sam Keller |
| Curator | Oliver Wick |
| Website | http://www.beyeler.com/fondation |
The Beyeler Foundation or Fondation Beyeler with its museum in Riehen, near Basel, owns and oversees the art collection of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler.
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[edit] History
Art dealers Ernst Beyeler (*1921) and Hilda Kunz (*1922), known as Hildy, created the Beyeler Foundation in 1982 and commissioned Renzo Piano to design a museum, the Fondation Beyeler, to house their private collection.[1] The collection was first publicly exhibited in its entirety at the Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid in 1989, and was subsequently shown at Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, (1993) and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sidney, (1997).[2]
By building Renzo Piano's museum structure in 1997, the Beyeler Foundation made its collection permanently accessible to the public. In 2006, approximately 340,000 persons visited the museum. Hildy Beyeler died on July 18, 2008, and Ernst died on February 25, 2010.
[edit] Collection and exhibitions
The Beyeler Foundation opened its doors on October 18, 1997, presenting 140 works of modern classics, including 23 Picassos. The overall collection of 200 works of classic modernism reflect the views of Hildy and Ernst Beyeler on 20th-century art and highlight features typical of the period from Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh to Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Francis Bacon. The paintings appear alongside some 25 objects of tribal art from Africa, Oceania and Alaska. A third of the exhibition space is reserved for special exhibitions staged to complement the permanent collection. The culmination of Beyeler's career came in 2007 when all the works that passed through his hands were reunited at the museum for a grand exhibition that included van Gogh's 1889 Portrait of Postman Roulin, Lichtenstein's Plus and Minus III and a huge expressive drip painting by Jackson Pollock.[3]
[edit] "Wrapped Trees"
The garden surrounding the museum also periodically serves as a venue for special exhibitions. Christo and Jeanne-Claude veiled 178 trees in the park around the Beyeler Foundation and in the adjacent Berower Park between November 13 and December 14, 1998.
[edit] Further reading
- Hollerstein, Roman. Renzo Piano - Fondation Beyeler. A Home for Art: Foundation Beyeler - A Home for Art. Birkhäuser Verlag, 1998. ISBN 978-3764359195.
- Boehm, Gottfried. Fondation Beyeler. Prestel, 2001. ISBN 978-3791318851.
- Beyeler, Ernst; Büttner Philippe. Fondation Beyeler. Collection. Hatje Cantz, 2008. ISBN 978-3775719469.
